Retaliation

My latest at the Diplomat takes a look at the Obama administration’s executive order on retaliation against private Chinese actors:

But the Obama administration may be willing to take the risk of a hard stance on Chinese cyber-espionage. Industrial espionage isn’t the only, or even the most important, way for China to get technology from U.S. companies.  Ever since China began attracting more FDI, Chinese companies have focused on the potential for technology transfer, which many Western firms have been happy to oblige. And despite the tremendous advances that the Chinese tech sector has made, technology transfers still flow much more heavily from the United States to China than the other way around.